Tragedy to joy for Hampton woman

It was 24 years ago in Ukraine that young Maryna Zorya walked into a kitchen where her mother was cooking.

Suddenly, Maryna (pronounced Ma-REE-na), then a year and a half old, reached up to the stove and tipped a pan, pouring scalding oil onto her face.

The 1985 accident left the toddler's face severely disfigured. Her nose was nearly gone. She had no lips and couldn't close her mouth. Her neck was so scarred that she found it difficult to look up. Her ears, eyelids and other parts of her face also were injured.

So began a changed future for Maryna.

Growing up in Ukraine, she constantly held a cloth over her face to avoid being seen by others. She was taught in the school library by a teacher assigned solely to her. And kids would tease her incessantly, calling her "ugly" and saying she would never get married.

But now, 10 years after coming to America, Maryna has found love.

In late April, Maryna, 25, married Andrew VanderJagt, also 25, a friend from Liberty Baptist Church whom she began dating in early 2008.

"What Maryna might lack in maybe not being able to put her lips together, the Lord has given her so much grace and character that I'll put her up against any woman," Andrew said.

A key moment in her life came in 1997, when Dois I. Rosser Jr., a Hampton man on a Christian mission trip to Ukraine, found Maryna and arranged for her to come to the U.S. Since then, she's had more than 20 reconstructive surgeries — all performed free by U.S. surgeons.

Maryna's nose is made from a piece of her rib and skin from her neck. A tendon from her wrist was stretched over her chin and lower mouth, connected to other facial muscles to allow better movement. Lips were created — made pink with mouth tissue and tattoos. New cheeks were created using a hard mesh material, covered with back tissue. Neck scarring was cut out and replaced.

Her upper jaw still can't move much, and her new upper lips are essentially locked in place. But at least it's in the form of a perpetual smile showing off a set of gleaming white teeth.

Maryna estimates that she's received at least $1 million worth of surgeries at no cost.

"The little girl was so gracious and kind that everyone just wanted to help," Rosser said. "The cumulative effort of what took place in that girl's life is a modern-day miracle."

Beautiful brideFor the wedding, doting friends and acquaintances contributed about $5,000. They also covered the cost of two round-trip tickets to fly Maryna's parents — a carpenter and retired factory worker — from Ukraine. Flower arrangements and cakes were donated.

Three surgeons who worked on Maryna were on hand for the event. During the couple's first dance, the surgeon who performed much of the work, Denton Weiss of Virginia Beach, put his face in his hands and cried.

"He picked her up and spun her around twice, and it was more than I could take," Weiss said. "It was like a dance of joy, with deep looks into each other's eyes. There was nothing but good in the world, man. ... Just wow, man, just wow."

Of Andrew, Weiss said: "He sees the depth of her beauty internally. And he sees the depth of her beauty externally. Because it's there."

Maryna's parents, Nickolay and Galena Zorya, who are visiting in Hampton until late July, said through a translator — their daughter — that they're "double happy" at what's happened.

"We just wanted her to get better," said Nickolay Zorya, 58. "We're very grateful."

Andrew, who is the son of a retired Army sergeant and works as a customer service manager at the Hampton Wal-Mart, feels lucky to have Maryna, with whom he says he's never had a serious disagreement.

Besides, Andrew, who has suffered from occasional seizures throughout his life, says he literally owes his life to his wife.

One afternoon in the summer of 2007, he and Maryna were at a local swimming pool with friends. As people horsed around, Maryna noticed that Andrew — trying to hold his breath underwater — wasn't moving and was turning purple. He had blacked out.

Maryna had a tracheotomy in her throat from an operation and couldn't go under water, but managed to reach in and lift the 6-foot-3, 220-pound Andrew out.

After that rescue, he said, "I started watching her a lot more."

Staying powerIt's all a long way from the tragic kitchen accident in 1985.

At the time, Maryna was in the hospital for months, and the Ukrainian doctors weren't optimistic.

"They put a lot of bandages on, and they just waited for me to die," Maryna explained. "But I wasn't dying."

She was later transferred to a burn center, where she had some basic surgeries.

Fast forward to 1997, when Rosser — a Christian missionary, Hampton resident and founder of the Pomoco Auto Group — met Maryna at a church he had built near Kiev.

Maryna, then 14, was walking by when the Ukrainian pastor called her over to meet Rosser.

"I couldn't believe a person could be burned that badly and live," said Rosser, now 87.

He told the pastor privately that perhaps his outreach ministry, International Cooperating Ministries in Hampton, could get involved. Two years later, in 1999, Maryna and her older sister, Sasha, were on a plane bound for the U.S.

But then there was a last-minute snag: While the girls were on the plane, Rosser learned that the hospital in Houston that had agreed to do the surgery for free had backed out.

Rosser re-routed the girls to Hampton and found a local doctor, Glenn Sheppard, of Newport News, who agreed to perform surgery for free if Rosser could find an operating room.

Rosser's son-in-law, on the board of Mary Immaculate Hospital, offered a room there, and eventually other physicians joined Maryna's case.

Sheppard performed surgery to allow Maryna to fully close her eyelids, but then retired.

Then Dr. Ray Lee, a local oral surgeon, who also worked on Maryna, got in touch with Dr. Julian Pribaz, from Bringham and Women's Hospital in Boston and one of the nation's foremost plastic surgeons. Pribaz performed three major surgeries on Maryna in late 2000 and 2001.

Then Weiss — who worked as a resident under Pribaz in Boston — took over Maryna's case from Hampton Roads, where he had been a Navy doctor. Over the past eight years, Weiss performed more than 20 major and minor surgeries, many of them at Sentara Obici Hospital. Local dentist Scott Golrich also did major work, as did Mike Matchett, an anesthesiologist.

Maryna, who has learned English, can now say the "B" and "M" sounds, even though she can't put her lips together.

Their first three years in the U.S., Maryna and Sasha lived with families from Liberty Baptist Church. Maryna then lived with Hampton resident Jean House between 2002 and 2009.

Maryna took a major step in 2005, when she stopped holding the cloth over her face. Her face was beginning to look better, and God "gave me the strength" to put it down, she said.

"I was so tired of holding it," she said. "I started thinking it just looks so strange to hold a cloth over my mouth. ... At that time I was praying for a husband. And it seemed like I heard God say to drop the scarf, or I won't meet that right person."

Fateful meetingTwo years later, in 2007, House noticed that Maryna had her eye on Andrew. So House, 82, began playing the role of "Cupid," the couple's nickname for her now.

There was the time House needed a new battery for a watch. She went to Wal-Mart, asking Andrew to install a new battery, and said she'd be back in a few minutes. Instead, she said, "something told me" to "forget" the watch. She hoped Andrew would come by the house to drop it off, thereby running into Maryna.

Sure enough, Andrew came by the next day.

"Maryna opened the door, and was like, 'Wait, what are you doing here?'" he said.

"And the rest is history," Maryna said.

During the couple's courtship, House would give the couple tickets to local museums and events — and was always sure to kick Andrew out of the house when the time came.

"I used to say, 'Time for the nighty nights,'" House said. "I wanted to go to bed, and I didn't want any hanky-panky around."

The couple honeymooned in a house on the Rappahannock River in White Stone, about 25 miles north of Gloucester.

The owner, Rosser's daughter, let them use it for free.

In March, there was a snag in renting an apartment because Maryna didn't have a Social Security number.

Andrew, who "felt like God was going to open the doors," was surprised.

"I remember saying, 'God, I don't know what the heck you're doing, but I know you've got something better in store,'" he said.

Then their minister introduced them to Rosser's 92-year-old sister. She allowed them use of her second floor — where the couple lives now.

"I have never seen such favor, such love being poured upon two people," House said.

Maryna is volunteering at Rosser's ministry organization, planning to soon take the GED high school equivalency test. She still has more surgeries left, including using lasers and adding fatty tissue to reduce facial scarring.

Because of the seizures, Andrew has so far had to drive a scooter instead of a car. So they dart about town on that bike, both in helmets — Andrew driving, Maryna holding her husband around the waist.

"It's wonderful to have someone by your side," Maryna said.

"It's like something you read in a story book," House said. " Cinderella."

Ukrainian girl's story a decade in the making The Daily Press first introduced readers to Maryna Zorya at Christmas in 1999, when she was 16 and beginning to undergo a series of reconstructive facial operations. Since coming to the United States in 1997 from Ukraine, where she was badly burned as a toddler, Maryna has endured more than 20 surgeries that she estimates cost more than $1 million. The operations have all been performed by doctors, many local, for free. Maryna is seen here in a family photo before her reconstructive surgeries began.